Somalis In State Say Offer Comes Late

Sending U.S. troops to safeguard food supplies in Somalia would save lives, but it is too late for too many, Somali activists in Connecticut said Thursday.

"There are so many people who died who could have been saved if the United Nations and the United States moved earlier to provide humanitarian relief," said Abdi Goud Musa of West Haven, a 38-year-old accountant who left Somalia in 1988.

An estimated 100,000 Somalis have died from famine and violence, and 2 million more are endangered. Musa said he was discouraged by the United States' slow response to the mass starvation.

"If you have oil and there is American interest, the United States will put their people's lives on the line," he said. "But if you're poor and black, like the Somalis, it seems that their lives aren't as valuable."

Musa belongs to the Somali Community of Connecticut, a group that promotes Somali interests.

He said that if President Bush's offer to send 30,000 U.S. troops to safeguard food shipments is followed through, it will stop the looting and violence.

"They are armed teenagers, and they are literally robbing them of the food and selling it for money," Musa said. "They are not highly equipped, and they do not have sophisticated weapons."

Suad Abdi, a 29-year-old engineer, said she came to this country to further her studies. She publishes a newsletter in New Britain, called Iftim, meaning "light," designed to unify the Somali population in the United States and Canada.

The civil strife used to consist of two major clans fighting for supremacy, Abdi said, but has evolved into a struggle among disorganized and isolated teenage gangs. They steal food at gunpoint for personal profit, not political gain, she said.

"They are just teenagers holding guns," Abdi said. "Maybe they will be very scared when they see the Americans holding weapons."

But to be effective, she said, the U.S. troops would have to stay in Somalia to ensure that government officials are elected who

will promote the best interests of the people.

Mohamoud D. Ahmed, 44, of Hartford, who founded the Somali Relief Committee Inc. in 1982, said the government and school system in Somalia have been destroyed. He said the United States must use military force to save lives.

"There is no other way to save the women and children who are dying there," Ahmed said.

Rashid Abdi Rahman Egale, 56, the former deputy general manager for the national agency on trade in Somalia, said he knows firsthand about the random violence.

"All they are doing is firing aimlessly," said Egale, who is the founder of the African Refugee Alliance in Connecticut.

"Bullets have been aimed at me. I have fled from that. I have lost all of my belongings and I have seen people dying and killed by youngsters. It's just madness," said Egale, a Hartford resident who arrived in the United States via a Kenyan refugee camp in May.

"With the help of the United States government we now have hope, but, before, we were worried," Egale said. "We thought the whole country was going to disappear from the map."